Staff Pick

Never mind the sophomore slump — this book devours that cliché. As well as illuminating the rich history and familial culture behind war-torn Afghanistan, A Thousand Splendid Suns is filled with authentic relationships and characters that are absolutely haunting. Recommended by Danielle, Powells.com

Review-A-Day

"If A Thousand Splendid Suns is a little shaky as a work of literature, at least a reader feels that Hosseini has more at stake than where the book ends up on the bestseller list." Yvonne Zipp, Christian Science Monitor (read the entire CSM review)

"It's not that emotionally hardened (or what could fairly be called 'regular') men won't like this book. They just won't want to....This would be as painful as it sounds if it weren't for Hosseini's incredible storytelling. As it is, you can't help but be invested in the lives of these characters..." Peter Martin, Esquire (read the entire Esquire review)

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today.

Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them — in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul — they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.

Review:

"Afghan-American novelist Hosseini follows up his bestselling The Kite Runner with another searing epic of Afghanistan in turmoil. The story covers three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny through the lives of two women. Mariam is the scorned illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman, forced at age 15 into marrying the 40-year-old Rasheed, who grows increasingly brutal as she fails to produce a child. Eighteen later, Rasheed takes another wife, 14-year-old Laila, a smart and spirited girl whose only other options, after her parents are killed by rocket fire, are prostitution or starvation. Against a backdrop of unending war, Mariam and Laila become allies in an asymmetrical battle with Rasheed, whose violent misogyny — 'There was no cursing, no screaming, no pleading, no surprised yelps, only the systematic business of beating and being beaten' — is endorsed by custom and law. Hosseini gives a forceful but nuanced portrait of a patriarchal despotism where women are agonizingly dependent on fathers, husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male children being their sole path to social status. His tale is a powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan, but also a lyrical evocation of the lives and enduring hopes of its resilient characters." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"At the National Book Festival on Washington's Mall last fall, the line of people waiting to have Khaled Hosseini sign copies of his first novel, 'The Kite Runner,' was so long it seemed to stretch across Memorial Bridge and into Virginia. It was telling proof of the extraordinary and somewhat implausible popularity enjoyed by that novel about a young Afghan who betrays his best friend but ultimately... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) redeems himself though an act of selfless (if initially reluctant) generosity. 'The Kite Runner' was a national and then international best-seller and remains one today, four years after its publication.

So now we have Hosseini's second novel. It too is set in Afghanistan, and it too deals with ordinary people whose lives are lastingly altered by the terrible events in that country during the past three decades. It's going to be another best-seller no matter what's said about it in this and other reviews, so maybe there's no point in going further. But just in case you're curious, just in case you're wondering whether in yours truly's judgment it's as good as 'The Kite Runner,' here's the answer: No. It's better.

This is said in full knowledge of Hosseini's literary shortcomings. Though his prose usually is competent — especially considering that English is not his native language — it lacks grace and distinctiveness. The novel moves swiftly but is unwieldy, as Hosseini suddenly introduces an entirely new set of characters a quarter of the way through and needs another quarter of the way to get them fully involved in the plot. The book is powerfully moving, as was 'The Kite Runner,' but Hosseini is not above melodrama and heartstring-tugging. 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' is popular fiction of the first rank, which is plenty good enough, but it is not literature and should not be mistaken for such.

No matter. Hosseini, who appears to be an uncommonly decent man, seems also to be utterly without literary pretensions. 'For me as a writer,' he says in an interview distributed to reviewers, 'the story has always taken precedence over everything else. I have never sat down to write with broad, sweeping ideas in mind. ... For me it always starts from a very personal, intimate place, about human connections, and then expands from there.'

Certainly that is what takes place in 'A Thousand Splendid Suns.' It begins with an unhappy little girl in a hut outside the Afghan city of Herat, then gradually widens its canvas to embrace numerous other people and to show, through their lives, what has happened to Afghanistan since the deposition of its last king in 1973.

The unhappy little girl is named Mariam. She is harami: a bastard. Her mother, Nana, was a servant in the household of Jalil, a rich and powerful man who took advantage of her. He built the hut for her and Nana, and occasionally visited them there, but utterly rejected his daughter in all other ways and kept her away from the 10 children he had by his three wives. Nana loves Mariam, in a crude way, but speaks bitterly to her, making plain that she 'was an illegitimate person who would never have legitimate claim to the things other people had, things such as love, family, home, acceptance.' To Jalil's wives she is 'the walking, breathing embodiment of their shame,' and after Nana's death, they marry her off to Rasheed, a shoemaker from Kabul, 'to erase, once and for all, the last trace of their husband's scandalous mistake.'

Mariam is 15, Rasheed some 30 years her senior. He is a lout, his distinguishing features 'the big, square, ruddy face; the hooked nose; the flushed cheeks that gave the impression of sly cheerfulness; the watery, bloodshot eyes; the crowded teeth, the front two pushed together like a gabled roof; the impossibly low hairline, barely two finger widths above the bushy eyebrows; the wall of thick, coarse, salt-and-pepper hair.' Mariam is no beauty herself, but she has dignity and fortitude, and she suffers her husband's coarse behavior with as much cheer as she can muster. As it becomes increasingly clear that she will be unable to bear him children, his coarseness slips over into contempt and brutality:

'It wasn't easy tolerating him talking this way to her, to bear his scorn, his ridicule, his insults, his walking past her like she was nothing but a house cat. But after four years of marriage, Mariam saw clearly how much a woman could tolerate when she was afraid. And Mariam was afraid. She lived in fear of his shifting moods, his volatile temperament, his insistence on steering even mundane exchanges down a confrontational path that, on occasion, he would resolve with punches, slaps, kicks, and sometimes try to make amends for with polluted apologies and sometimes not.'

As that passage suggests, the central theme of 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' is the place of women in Afghan society. As a girl Mariam is told by her mother: 'Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.' And: 'It's our lot in life, Mariam. Women like us. We endure. It's all we have.' And: 'She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. ... As a reminder of how women like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us.'

Mariam's life with Rasheed is testimony enough to the validity of Nana's warnings, and it becomes even worse when he takes a girl, Laila, as his second wife. She is no more enthusiastic about this than Mariam was, but she has a reason to agree: She is newly pregnant by the young man she loves. Before she knew this, he asked her to marry him and she reluctantly declined, but now she believes he is dead. She hopes that Rasheed will believe her child is his own.

Mariam is outraged that this beautiful teenager has wormed her way into her household, and she speaks bitterly to her, but when the baby arrives — it is a girl, no comfort to Rasheed, who expected a son — Mariam becomes enchanted with the child and gradually softens toward the mother. After one of Rasheed's outbursts, 'a look passed between Laila and Mariam. An unguarded, knowing look. And in this fleeting, wordless exchange with Mariam, Laila knew that they were not enemies any longer.'

The story of these two women, which reaches its climax in an act of extraordinary generosity and self-sacrifice, plays out against the backdrop of Afghanistan's tumultuous recent history: the deposition of King Zahir Shah in 1973 by his cousin, Daoud Khan; the overthrow of Khan five years later by rebels supported by the Soviet Union; the long, bloody war against Soviet troops for control of the country; the rout of the communists in 1992 and the rise of the mujaheddin, under whose chaotic rule 'Pashtuns and Hazaras and Tajiks and Uzbeks are killing each other'; the calamitous triumph of the Taliban; the American invasion in the aftermath of September 2001.

Like a historian or a journalist, Hosseini is punctilious about providing dates for all of this, which seems a bit out of place in a work of fiction but doubtless will be useful to American readers, too few of whom know as much as the times demand about Hosseini's native land, where 'every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief,' yet where 'people find a way to survive, to go on.' Many of us learned much from 'The Kite Runner.' There is much more to be learned from 'A Thousand Splendid Suns.' It is, for all its shortcomings, a brave, honorable, big-hearted book.

Review:

"Unimaginably tragic, Hosseini's magnificent second novel is a sad and beautiful testament to both Afghani suffering and strength. Readers who lost themselves in The Kite Runner will not want to miss this unforgettable follow up." Booklist (Starred Review)

Review:

"Hosseini barrels through each grim development unflinchingly, seeking illumination. Another artistic triumph, and surefire bestseller, for this fearless writer." Kirkus Reviews

Review:

Review:

"What keep this novel vivid and compelling are Hosseini's eye for the textures of daily life and his ability to portray a full range of human emotions, from the smoldering rage of an abused wife to the early flutters of maternal love when a woman discovers she is carrying a baby." Los Angeles Times

Review:

"Hosseini's bewitching narrative captures the intimate details of life in a world where it's a struggle to survive, skillfully inserting this human story into the larger backdrop of recent history." San Francisco Chronicle

Review:

"The violence is as graphic as you would expect in any book that details the atrocities of war....A Thousand Splendid Suns will tear at your heart and make you better understand the legacy of violence our soldiers are fighting against in Afghanistan." Chicago Sun-Times

Review:

"While Afghanistan has virtually disappeared from the headlines...A Thousand Splendid Suns offers all the crowd-pleasing appeal of his debut, with some star-crossed lovers thrown in for good measure. (Grade: B+)" Entertainment Weekly

Review:

"[E]xceeds every expectation. This tough-to-put-down book leaves even a jaded reader crying, wincing and gasping at Laila and Mariam's agony — and triumphing at their fleeting happiness. If anything, Splendid Suns is more visceral and heart-wrenching than Kite Runner." The Associated Press

Synopsis:

After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today.

Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.

Synopsis:

After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today.

Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.

Video

About the Author

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and moved to the United States in 1980. His first novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, published in 34 countries. In 2006 he received the Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Refugee Agency and was named a U.S. goodwill envoy to that agency. He lives in northern California.

LASALLE12456, January 1, 2013 (view all comments by LASALLE12456)
The second offering for Hosseini. The Kite Runner was spectacular. This second book was even better.
It offers a personal view of the life of women in Afghanistan. A great read. The story of a young girl who is "orphaned", then shortly married off into a harsh life. It is the story of women bonding in a harsh country.
Don't pass this book up. You will be challenged by it's brutality. A page turner to the conclusion.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No(1 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)

Never mind the sophomore slump — this book devours that cliché. As well as illuminating the rich history and familial culture behind war-torn Afghanistan, A Thousand Splendid Suns is filled with authentic relationships and characters that are absolutely haunting.

by Danielle

"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Afghan-American novelist Hosseini follows up his bestselling The Kite Runner with another searing epic of Afghanistan in turmoil. The story covers three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny through the lives of two women. Mariam is the scorned illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman, forced at age 15 into marrying the 40-year-old Rasheed, who grows increasingly brutal as she fails to produce a child. Eighteen later, Rasheed takes another wife, 14-year-old Laila, a smart and spirited girl whose only other options, after her parents are killed by rocket fire, are prostitution or starvation. Against a backdrop of unending war, Mariam and Laila become allies in an asymmetrical battle with Rasheed, whose violent misogyny — 'There was no cursing, no screaming, no pleading, no surprised yelps, only the systematic business of beating and being beaten' — is endorsed by custom and law. Hosseini gives a forceful but nuanced portrait of a patriarchal despotism where women are agonizingly dependent on fathers, husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male children being their sole path to social status. His tale is a powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan, but also a lyrical evocation of the lives and enduring hopes of its resilient characters." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Review A Day"
by Yvonne Zipp, Christian Science Monitor,
"If A Thousand Splendid Suns is a little shaky as a work of literature, at least a reader feels that Hosseini has more at stake than where the book ends up on the bestseller list." (read the entire CSM review)

"Review A Day"
by Peter Martin, Esquire,
"It's not that emotionally hardened (or what could fairly be called 'regular') men won't like this book. They just won't want to....This would be as painful as it sounds if it weren't for Hosseini's incredible storytelling. As it is, you can't help but be invested in the lives of these characters..." (read the entire Esquire review)

"Review"
by Booklist (Starred Review),
"Unimaginably tragic, Hosseini's magnificent second novel is a sad and beautiful testament to both Afghani suffering and strength. Readers who lost themselves in The Kite Runner will not want to miss this unforgettable follow up."

"Review"
by Kirkus Reviews,
"Hosseini barrels through each grim development unflinchingly, seeking illumination. Another artistic triumph, and surefire bestseller, for this fearless writer."

"Review"
by Los Angeles Times,
"What keep this novel vivid and compelling are Hosseini's eye for the textures of daily life and his ability to portray a full range of human emotions, from the smoldering rage of an abused wife to the early flutters of maternal love when a woman discovers she is carrying a baby."

"Review"
by San Francisco Chronicle,
"Hosseini's bewitching narrative captures the intimate details of life in a world where it's a struggle to survive, skillfully inserting this human story into the larger backdrop of recent history."

"Review"
by Chicago Sun-Times,
"The violence is as graphic as you would expect in any book that details the atrocities of war....A Thousand Splendid Suns will tear at your heart and make you better understand the legacy of violence our soldiers are fighting against in Afghanistan."

"Review"
by Entertainment Weekly,
"While Afghanistan has virtually disappeared from the headlines...A Thousand Splendid Suns offers all the crowd-pleasing appeal of his debut, with some star-crossed lovers thrown in for good measure. (Grade: B+)"

"Review"
by The Associated Press,
"[E]xceeds every expectation. This tough-to-put-down book leaves even a jaded reader crying, wincing and gasping at Laila and Mariam's agony — and triumphing at their fleeting happiness. If anything, Splendid Suns is more visceral and heart-wrenching than Kite Runner."

"Synopsis"
by Penguin,

After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today.

Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.

"Synopsis"
by Penguin,

After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today.

Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.

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